Secondhand Faith
by Diana Lucifera
Summary: Life sucks, then you die. (Faith tag, part of the Brother's Blood 'verse)


Happy Holidays, everyone! This year, we're giving you the gift of heartache (pun intended?). Leave a review if you have some time! We appreciate every one.

* * *

The thing is, Rawheads are kiddie stuff.

Literally. They're pissant monsters who only go after sick, weak kids whose parents don't check under the bed before tuckin' 'em in at night. They're big, slow, ugly cowards and Dean? Dean's been takin' 'em down since he was fourteen, and making bigger, badder tazers to do the takin' every single time. 'Cause it's fun, and 'cause he's damn good at it.

He's never once messed up on a Rawhead hunt.

Not once.

Not in trackin' the thing, not in modifying the Tasers to take it out, not in hunting it or killing it or anything. His Dad had him helpin' out on Rawhead hunts before he was hustling pool, before he was shaving, before Sammy even knew there were things in the dark to be afraid of.

It fucking figures that if he was gonna make a stupid mistake, it'd be on an easy hunt.

And it fucking figures that it'd be in a basement.

* * *

Sam turns his back for less than a minute.

Not even that. Just a few seconds to get the kids out of the basement, through the house, and point them at the car, and then he's back, hurtling down the stairs, but it's too late because there's screaming and growling and the smell of ozone and burnt flesh, and Dean isn't moving.

He isn't, and Sam loses it because he can't find a pulse and Dean won't wake up and he's lying in a pool of water with a Taser in his hand and how could he be so _stupid_, and what do you even do for this? What's Sam supposed to do?

And it's like Louisiana all over again, like he's in over his head but Dean's the one drowning, and Sam is trapped in the past and the present, dragging his brother upstairs and to the car, heart in his throat, because now Dean's not breathing. He's not breathing, and Sam can't do this, can't get through it again because slicing open his arm won't save Dean this time, nothing he has, nothing he can give will bring his brother back. Sam's never left, but he's too late, too here and too gone all at once.

He wants to save Dean, only wants to save Dean. Dean's his bargain, the only steady, worthwhile thing in his life, because he never had Mom and he lost Jess and Stanford and normal and Dean's all that's left, all that was never gone and there the whole time and the steady, sanity rebuilding undercurrent of normal in his crazy, fucked up life and if he loses Dean— if his brother doesn't start breathing and open his eyes and wake up, Sam is going to have to start tearing the world apart at the seams, ripping at the fabric of what is and isn't and fucking find his brother because it doesn't work this way, Sam never wanted it to work this way...

Sam never wanted this. He never wanted any of this.

Sam never wants to go back to that basement. Never wants to go back to showing a six year old how to give his brother CPR while burning rubber to get to the hospital.

He never wants to go back to watching as medics drag Dean's body from the back of the Impala, to having orderlies heave him away from his brother, to hanging limp in their arms as doctors shove a tube down his brother's throat, and wheel him away on a gurney as they try to force the life back into him.

He can't do that.

Not again.

The kids are safe, though. Dean made sure of that. The cops usher them away, and Sam can see them pause, think about asking him to come down to the station.

They don't bother.

Either because the nurses'll watch him or hospital security has his description or the kids are looking at him like some kind of savior, it doesn't matter. They leave, and it's just Sam waiting.

Waiting for Dean. For him to live or die, for his world to start spinning again or stop entirely. Until then, Sam doesn't exist, not really. He's somewhere between asleep and awake, in shock and in terror, afraid and unhinged and ready, ready to tear the world apart if they tell him Dean's gone, ready to claw his way through this reality and the next if that's what it's gonna take to get his brother back.

He'll do it. He'll do it in a heartbeat.

But it would be so, so much better if Dean could just be okay, could just burst through those doors and call Sam a big, hysterical girl and ruffle his hair and drive them to some greasy hole-in-the-wall, singing off-key to the greatest hits of hair metal as Sam rolls his eyes in the front seat, pretending like this isn't the closest to home and family and happy he's ever known.

It's not until a nurse comes out, telling him Dean stabilized but needs to be admitted – needs further tests, needs help, help Sam can't give him – that Sam's world starts turning again, stopped being a held breath and an ocean of awful, terrible possibilities. Then it's another waiting room in a different wing, the same vinyl chairs and institutional posters, just on a different floor in a different color, and paperwork and nurses and giving his statement to the cops, their faces quiet and apologetic, their charges, the kids he and Dean saved, gone, back to their parents, back to home and school and a normal life.

Sam doesn't get normal, though, or back to anything. The doctor's back, and Dean is dying which is _wrong_. It's not possible. Sam knows the statistics on Tasers, on electricity, on the human heart. He knows the science and he knows Dean and he can't be dying because his brother doesn't just die. And the doctor is saying that there's nothing he can do, but that's not possible because this is the fucking 2000's and this is _Dean_. There is _never_ nothing you can do.

This isn't happening. It can't be happening.

Sam isn't gonna just let it happen.

* * *

Dean'll admit, the crack about his options being burial or cremation was a low blow.

He can see the hurt in Sam's stupid Bambi eyes as soon as he says it, and he feels bad, really, he does, but Sam isn't facing what's happening here. He doesn't want to leave Sam, doesn't want his baby brother to watch him die gasping, trying to catch a breath that never seems to be in reach, grabbing at a pain in his chest that just won't go away, pale and weak and fading in a fucking hospital bed of all places, doctors and nurses apathetically trying to save someone everyone knows can't be saved, all while his brother watches him get pasty and poked at, shocked and cut and drugged to the gills as everyone tries to delay the inevitable.

He doesn't want that for Sammy, and he sure as hell doesn't want his baby brother to remember him like this.

Give Dean a bullet in the head over this any day.

But of course, Sam is Sam, so he puts his stubborn face on and refuses to look good sense in the eye and won't take the fucking keys and drive off, so Plan A is out the fucking window.

Dean knows his baby brother. He's seen that look of defiant resolution before.

He's gonna try and beat this. Gonna try and find some way to hunt down Dean's fucking fried heart and fix it.

A part of Dean, a tiny, naive, hopeful part, wants Sam to do it. To treat this like just another case and find the magic bullet, hunt down the monster, and save the day. To fix everything, with just some dusty old book and the cache in the trunk of the Impala.

But the rest of Dean, the parts of him that have been all over, gone too many places, seen too many things, watched too many people – in the game and out – die bloody, knows that there's no cure for this.

Knows there's no other ending to this story.

It happens to every hunter eventually, and he's dodged more than his fair share of bullets, had more than enough close calls. What they do is dangerous, and this? After everything, is it really a surprise?

Dean is going to die. Soon.

And what hurts the most is that Sammy's gonna make himself watch.

What big brother in the world would want to put their little brother through that? Would want to make them watch as things end slow and painful?

Dean knows how this works. He's seen how Sam gets when his big brother's hurting, and he knows he's gonna keep feeling like shit, keep with the dizzy spells and chest pains and trouble breathing, and it's gonna keep getting worse and worse until his heart just gives up the ghost and kills him. Doc was pretty clear on all those points.

Sam can't stop that, can't possibly do anything for it, and it's only gonna hurt him to watch, so why? Why would he ever stay? Why would he put himself through it all?

…

Dean doesn't have to ask that.

And Sam, standing at the foot of Dean's bed doing his damnedest not to cry, not to look lost, not to let anything but anger and stubbornness show on his face?

Sam doesn't have to answer.

His answer is in the scar on his arm, the bullets in his gun, in hundreds of thousands of miles of road, in burger joints and hotel rooms and sitting on the hood on clear nights, watching the stars. His answer is staying through the worst, sticking through this bitter end, just so Dean won't have to face it alone.

Dean just wishes, for the first time in his life, that it wasn't true. That just this once Sammy could be any other hunter, could be literally anyone else, could say his goodbyes and move along and leave Dean to go it on his own.

It would hurt less that way.

But Sam?

Sam is Sam, resolutely sitting by Dean's hospital bed, making research flow charts on a notepad he snagged from the nurses' station, tapping away on a laptop and collating data and wincing every time Dean coughs or gets short of breath or has to press a hand to his chest in the middle of a sentence. No matter what Dean says, his brother won't skip town, and he won't give up, and he won't ever, _ever_ forgive Dean if he tries to check out early.

It'll kill him, but Sam's not gonna let Dean die alone.

Dean hates it. Hates the circles that appear under Sammy's eyes, and how he buries himself in the glow of that laptop screen, scouring the web for answers, for more questions to ask and theories to pop and spells to research. He hates how his brother doesn't stop to eat or sleep, just goes and goes and snaps at the nurses on the first night when they move to usher him out, citing hospital regulation and visiting hours. Dean backs them up, urges Sammy to go, to get some sleep, even though he knows there's no chance in hell that's happening.

As soon as his brother gets up, stomps out the door and lets it slam behind him with a poisonous glare at the nurses, Dean misses him. It's stupid and girly and makes him sick, but he's dying, dammit. He's allowed to miss his dumb little brother slumped by his bed or camped out at the foot of it, always with Dean in his line of site, his eyes darting up every few minutes, checking that Dean's still there, still awake, still breathing, still alive... for now.

The mother henning was annoying, the fringe science and crazy lore Sam dug up was completely useless, but Dean will admit that it was nice having Sam there, all knees and elbows crammed against him, warm and annoying and smelling like research and coffee and Sammy.

As far as last sights go, Sam rolling his eyes at _Walker, Texas Ranger_ isn't a bad one to go out on. Of course, the joke fell flat and the tightness at Sam's mouth came back with Dean's next coughing fit, and as soon as he was laid back and resting again, Sammy's hands on his shoulder and his stupid hair tickling Dean's forehead, his brother dove back into research, and Dean could see the wreck he was becoming, little by little, as more and more theories and trials turned out to be just another dead end so that night, after Sammy leaves and the nurses quit fussing over his expiration-dated ass, Dean digs out his cell and calls Bobby.

"Yeah?" the old hunter snaps on the other end of the line.

"Hey Bobby," Dean does not sigh. He doesn't. He's just out of breath, that's all. "How's it goin'?"

"Better for me than you, from what I hear," Bobby grumbles, and Dean pretends to not notice the relief in the older man's voice, the thickness that can't be entirely chalked up to booze or exhaustion. "How're you doin'?"

"I'm dying," Dean answers shortly, "and it's drivin' Sammy nuts."

"Well can you blame 'im?" Bobby snaps. "You're checkin' out, boy! You're his brother! What's he supposed to do, grab the keys to the Impala and take off?"

Dean doesn't say anything for a long minute.

"Dean, you didn't!" Bobby snarls. "What the hell were you thinkin'?!"

"I was thinkin' Sammy's seen enough," Dean tosses back. "I was thinkin' after what he went through in Louisiana, after watching his girl burn to death, and after all the shit that kid's seen and done, watchin' me go slow in a hospital bed's the last thing he needs."

"If that's not the most selfish damn thing I've ever heard," Bobby gravels, "it's definitely the stupidest. Goddamnit, Dean, have ya met Sam? No way in hell he'd leave you to die. He's not-"

The older hunter catches himself. Stops, very suddenly.

"He's not who, Bobby?" Dean asks slow, a dare in his voice.

"He's not your daddy," Bobby finishes defiantly.

"Yeah. Thanks for that Bobby. Tell ya what, when I get downstairs? I'll save you a seat," Dean drags the cradle closer to him, ready to slam the earpiece down and end the call.

"Dean, hang on," Bobby stops him. "What'd ya call for?"

"Need you to do me a favor," Dean sighs, scrubbing an hand over his face and wincing as the IV needle tugs under his skin. "I go, Sammy needs someone lookin' out for him. Kid might be smart as hell and built like a brick shit house, but he's lousy at stuff like eatin' and sleepin' and not digging into his forearm with a goddamn machete, so you keep him from doin' all that shit or I swear to god, Bobby, I'll come back and kick both your asses. You hear me? Have I made myself clear?"

"Yeah, I hear ya," Bobby grumbles. "How'd Sam do with those leads I gave him? Friend of mine checked out that guy in Freemont, said he looked like the real deal—"

"Bobby, don't go encouragin' the kid," Dean shakes his head. "You know as well as I do there's nothin' out there."

"The hell I do," Bobby snarls. "The only reason I'm not haulin' ass to your goddamn bedside is 'cause if there's anyone on the planet with the right mix of smart and stubborn to find a fix to this, it's your damn brother."

"And if there isn't?" Dean rasps, and he hates how tired he sounds, how used and wrecked and done for his voice comes out.

"Then you two need each other a hell of a lot more than ya need me," Bobby gravels, and Dean isn't imagining the thickness in the other hunter's voice.

He nods, mutters some bullshit, and his eyes can't help but stray to the place beside his bed where, just a little while ago, Sam was camped out, stubborn and stupid and everywhere, home and family and not leaving Dean, not giving up, even when he should.

Because Dad told Dean what to do if a hunt went south. Told him right before Dean's first job, Told Dean – twitchy and eager, practically jumping out of his bones with a white-knuckle grip on the shotgun in his hands – what to do if the work went bad.

Dean realizes now that he never did the same thing for Sammy, never said that if a hunt ended the wrong way, you finish the job and burn the body and fucking run. Take the car. Go back to school. Find a girl. Take care of yourself.

Dean never told him. It never seemed like something that needed to be said.

After all, he had his big brother there lookin' after him. Takin' care of him. Wasn't gonna let anything in the world touch his Sammy.

Fat load of good that did. Yeah, Dean did a great job of makin' sure his little brother was okay. Watched out for him real well, what with his fun little psychotic break and mutilation session in Covington, topped off by Jess dyin' gory on his ceiling, and then eight months of solvin' her murder at the speed of smell when Dean isn't leaving him on the side of the goddamn highway.

Yeah. Dean's done a great job with Sam. Fantastic. And pretty soon, his little brother won't even have that.

"You better call my ass tomorrow Dean, or I'll change my mind about comin' out there," Bobby grumbles, gruff and familiar and put together again.

At least one of them has a handle on himself.

Dean mutters his goodbyes and hangs up, droppin' the phone in the cradle with a 'thunk' and digging through the nightstand, leaning over to stretch the monitor leads attached to his chest to the sticking point as he rummages through muddy, bloody clothes for what he knows is still there, tucked in the pocket of his jacket like it has been since November.

November 2nd, to be exact.

Dean flips open the black leather cover, just now beginning to show some wear along the edges after months of being pulled out and scribbled in, flipped open and closed, referenced and rechecked as he and Sammy hunted their way across the USA.

It's their hunter's journal. Well, it was gonna be, anyway.

It's nothing special. Black cover. Blank pages. But it survived the fire, made it into the one bag of things Sam took from the smoldering, smoking ruins of his apartment. Dean didn't ask then, but when Sam shoved it into his chest back at the hotel, turned back to leads and research with stiff shoulders and not-so-silent tears, Dean knew what he'd find when he flipped the thing open. He wasn't surprised to see Jess's smooth lines of charcoal and graphite tracing out Sam, bent over a desk full of books but relaxed, smiling, with Dean at his elbow, leaning a hip on the desk and nursing a beer with just the hint of a grin on his face as his eyes dart to Sam.

It's her. The only part of her to make it out of that apartment, and it's Dean and Sam, too, and when he asked Sam to pass him a legal pad later that night, Sammy's eyes had darted to the notebook on the desk, to the single sketch obscured by the plain, black cover. He'd swallowed hard, muttered for Dean to just use that, and gone back to his laptop without another word.

Dean'd crossed the room then, taken a legal pad for his scribbing, scrawled leads on kapre, but later, after the funeral, after they'd both had a chance to say goodbye, he did the first entry in Bobby's guest room, making the notes in careful, clear script on the second page as Sammy snored in the bed next to him, a hand flung out to tangle in the hem of Dean's shirt.

There are more pages filled in after that. The wendigo in Black Water, a few notes about some mysterious drownings in Minnesota that never panned out to anything. They figured either the situation had resolved itself or another hunter had beaten them to it. Sam's written about that plane-crashing demon in Pennsylvania, his arcing, rounded handwriting thankfully leaving out the part where Dean spent the majority of the exorcism glued to the side of the cabin, practically pissing himself in terror. On the other hand, Dean took over the notes for the Bloody Mary case, since Sam's vision was still a little iffy after having a psycho ghost bitch try at clawing out his eyes. The entry for the shifter in St. Louis is Sam's again. Apparently, Dean couldn't be trusted to make a straightforward account of the son of a bitch that stole his face, tortured his brother, and framed him for murder. The case with the Hook Man is in Dean's writing, the sketch at the bottom of the page of Jacob Karns' cross way better than any chicken scratch Sammy could have done, and after that is the weird-ass bug infestation in Oklahoma...

That one was bizarre as fuck. He and Sam switched off making the notes on it, because bugs? _Seriously_?

Sam made the entry for the poltergeist in their old house. It seemed right for him to do it, but Dean took the one for the haunted asylum in Rockford. God, the things they said to each other… there and on that hunt with the Wicker Man scarecrow-god thing… They straightened things out, though. Got through them and finished the job and moved on. But still…

No matter what happens when he kicks it, Dean's got a lot to answer for.

As far as last months go, though? Hunting, working with Sammy beside him? It was good. Real good. They saved a lot of people. Hunted a lot of things.

Dean's spent lot of days and nights with no one but Sammy, just he and his brother and the road. So many miles, so much time together, and it still wasn't enough.

Will never be enough.

They made a good team, he and Sam. Killed a hell of a lot of things that went 'bump' in the night, fought a war won by inches in the pages of the journal beneath Dean's fingers.

This journal and Sam, tall and strong and so, so smart. Not bad for a life's work. Not bad for a high school dropout with 23 bucks and some fake plastic to his name.

But Dean's got one entry left, something not monsters or baddies, something that belongs here, with everything he and Sammy've done together.

It's not a goodbye. It's instructions. After all, kid can't fucking take care of himself.

And sure, he could just write a letter, send it to Bobby to give to the kid for him, but it just... It seems right to put it here. Better than on loose leaf or some depressing-ass hospital stationary.

If this is all they get, all this fucked up world will let them have, then it belongs in their journal, with their hunts.

Dean takes a breath, as deep as the ache beneath his ribs'll allow, and picks up a pen Sam's abandoned on the nightstand. He'll admit he's screwed up more than enough in his life, but this one thing? This he can do right.

For Sammy.

His little brother deserves that much.

* * *

When Dean finishes, it's well after midnight.

There's tissues crumpled on the bedside table and pages ripped out of their journal, shredded and thrown in the tiny wastebasket by the hospital bed in frustration. Dean's tired and upset and the only person in this goddamn room, and he's getting really sick of that damn heart monitor beeping in his ear, of being able to hear every stupid snatch of gossip from the nurses' station outside of his room in the hushed silence of the hospital.

Seriously, Dean'd be more comfortable in a bone yard than this.

And honestly, that's the last straw. Dean takes his chance, pulling out all the stops and badgering every nurse and doctor he has to so he can get himself and his bum heart the hell out before visiting hours resume and Sam comes back and ties him to the bed.

It's been barely twenty-four hours, but he's already sick of institutional food and hospital smells, of nurses and medicine and those fucking gowns that don't close in the back. And if he's doing this, going out slow and painful, civilian-style, it's not gonna be here.

Dean knows it's stupid. Knows it's got all sort of twisty, fucked up implications about his life and his choices and what he feels for his brother. But if he's gonna die (and that's happening pretty definitely now), and Sammy insists on sticking around for it (also happening pretty definitely), it's gonna be on his terms.

It's not gonna be while Sam is breaking his back for nothing in a library across town, and it's not gonna be somewhere where the closest thing he has to his brother after visiting hours is a stretched-out hoodie that smells like his stupid girly shampoo.

So yeah, Dean's going out. He can deal with that. He's faced it before, dealt with it in that fuckin' cage in Louisiana.

He can come to terms with dyin' slow on a hunt that went wrong, but this time he's not alone. He's not trapped so why, _why_ would he choose to die somewhere there's bars on the windows and nurses that only come when your monitor goes nuts when he could go out in a crappy motel room down the street, cheesy action flick plying on TV as he bickers with Sammy about nothing in particular over his burger, knowing that as soon as they finish eating, his too-big little brother is gonna wrinkle his nose at the fries left on his plate, shove it aside, and come sprawl on Dean's bed, crazy-long legs everywhere, hair floppy and curling, leaning into Dean "because the bed's too small."

Dean'll go with it, ignore the fact that there's another bed not three feet away like he always does, pretend the contact isn't everything he needs in the world, and fall asleep to Sammy bitching in his ear about bad writing and cheesy special effects.

But of course, as soon as he drags his bum heart outta the taxi and down the hall of the shitty motel of the week (His last shitty motel. Huh. Who the fuck knew it would have a weird Laura-Ashley-meets-Lord-of-the-Rings vibe goin' on.) Sam's clucking and fussing and halfheartedly chewing his ass out as he takes his jacket and peels him out of his hoodie, complaining all the way through tucking Dean in and making sure he's not hungry and resettling all his research so that the glow from Sammy's computer screen doesn't both him.

And Dean?

He's comfortable for the first time in what feels like days, back to the familiar world of battered nightstands and worn sheets, of nubbly shag carpet and falling asleep to the uneven tapping of Sammy's keyboard against the white noise of a rattling hotel air conditioner.

Sleep comes quickly and quietly.

And Dean's not afraid he won't wake up.

* * *

Dean sleeps through the night as Sam researches.

The last five experimental treatments for congestive heart failure he found were either a total bust or unwilling to accept Dean. An AICD of LVAD wouldn't work, not for Dean and not for the long term, and with all the damage that tazer did, his brother might not even last long enough to go under the knife. A transplant's right out. Best case scenario, Dean's circumstances would get him bumped up the list, but there's no way he'd last long enough to actually have surgery, and as far as the other solutions Sam's researched? Their kind of solutions?

Voodoo, hoodoo, witchcraft, alchemy, charms, amulets, potions, spells, incantations, old gods, new gods, reiki, every part of every monster, real or fake, that's rumored to have healing powers, Sam has looked into.

Nothing.

He even put the word out to Bobby as soon as he got Dean's diagnosis, tried to find leads on healers in the hunter's network.

There's not much, not much that could lead to anything, anyway. Sam's still waiting for some callbacks, but the simple truth is, most hunters seem to share Dean's defeatist and, quite frankly, frustrating, mindset on what to do when the worst happens on a hunt.

Shrug. Give the poor bastard a hunter's wake. Move on.

That's not good enough. Not for Dean, and not as long as Sam has any – and he means _any_ – leads that say there's another way out of this.

He's not just going to give up on his brother. He's not just going to leave him here to die.

Sam's lost count of how many cups of crappy hotel-room coffee he's had when he digs their journal out of Dean's jacket. It's still damp and mucky after he pulled his brother from the Rawhead's basement, meaning to check on the number from one of their contacts from the Native American case in Oklahoma, and then he notices the pages ripped from behind their last entry.

Sam swallows hard as he flips back, expecting to see Dean's wide, spiky handwriting outlining their hunt for the Rawhead, and his mouth falls open when he sees his name at the top of the page instead.

_Sam-_

_I know you probably don't want to hear about this right now. Hell, you probably never wanted to hear this __ever__ but stick with me, okay?_

_So, the first time Dad took me out on a hunt- God, you couldn't have been more than 11, all freckles and elbows and bitching about having to move __again__- he told me what to do if things went wrong. He told me so that if something happened, I'd always know what to do. _

_How to take care of you._

_Guess when the time came, it never really occurred to either of us that we'd need to be worried about leaving you on your own. Guess we both just figured I'd always be around to watch out for you._

_To take care of my little brother._

_Guess I'm not gonna be able to make good on my part of the bargain there. _

_I'm sorry, Sammy. _

_Sorry I screwed up. Sorry I'm leaving you. Sorry we're not gonna be able to settle down somewhere, have a house and a dog and a life, prove to Dad that you can have a home and hunt all at the same time. I wanted it, Sammy. For you. For us. I really did._

_I told Bobby to check in on you. Don't make that face. You know you're gonna try and live off espresso and protein bars at some point, and if Jess and I aren't around, someone's gotta pull you out of it._

_Don't worry about finding Dad. Don't worry about any of it. Just go back to school. Have a life. A good one. If you won't do it for yourself, do it for me, okay? Do it so I won't have to worry so damn much._

_Sammy, if it was up to me, I'd stay. You know that. But I gotta go. And you've got to take care of yourself when I'm gone. You've got to._

_Just promise me that, okay? Promise me you'll take care of yourself._

Sam has to take a deep breath.

He has to take a deep breath and scrub a hand over his eyes and bear down hard, _hard_, and he still loses, still gives in to the rage and the frustration of more than a day of finding nothing. And now Dean's _given up_? Isn't even fighting anymore? How's he supposed to beat this if his brother won't even fight?

Sam just loses it, just gives over to the frustrating, boiling, impotent rage of wanting nothing, _nothing_ more than to save Dean and to fix everything but not being able to do anything, find anything, see anything, nothing over Dean, just not— not _caring_ enough about his own well-being to fucking fight!

Sam lets go, just loses it and chucks the note and the damn journal it's in right at Dean's stupid, sleeping, dying head.

"Why?" he shouts, as Dean bolts upright and makes a grab for his bowie knife, only to slump back to the bed coughing. "Why can't you let go of your stupid fucking martyr complex just once? One time, Dean, that's all I'm fucking asking!"

"The hell, Sammy?" Dean wheezes, hand pressed to his chest as he gasps for breath.

"The note, Dean!" Sam spits out, "I'm talking about the goddamn note!"

"Too early for this shit," Dean grumbles, snagging a corner of the sheet and rolling away from Sam to bury his face in the pillow

"No, Dean," Sam growls, striding towards the bed. "I've waited long enough for this."

He stomps across the tiny hotel room, plants a knee on the bed and grabs Dean's shoulder, flipping his brother over to face him and using his weight to keep him there.

"You're so intent on dying with a gun in your hand, fine!" he snaps, in Dean's face, glaring right into his brother's eyes, green and bright against newly pale skin, almost lost in sick, dark circles, "Have that be your mission in life, but goddamnit, Dean, do you really believe in me that little? Do you think I'm so bad at this that you won't even believe for a second that I can save you?"

Sam can feel the hot, frustrated, angry tears rising and swelling and they're so close, there's no space between them, no looking away, no hiding.

"Really?" he gasps. "Is it that hard to hope that something, _anything_ that we've seen in a lifetime of doing this is gonna pay out? That somewhere, somehow, there's something good? Something that can help us instead of hurt us for once?"

"Sammy—" Dean begins, and he's got that sad, pitying Santa's-not-real-Sammy look on his face ,and Sam can't take it, he can't. Not after everything else.

"No, Dean," Sam shakes his head, swallowing against the tears, but even with a bum heart, Dean is Dean, and apparently his brother's had enough, 'cause he's knocking Sam's elbows out from under him and sending him sprawling against his brother's chest, Sam's head digging instinctively into Dean's shoulder as gravity destroys the fragile inch between their skins.

"I trust you, Sammy," Dean starts quietly, hand knotted in the back of Sam's t-shirt. "If anyone can lick this, it's you, but Sammy, you-"

"Don't say 'you can't get your hopes, up', Dean," Sam mutters fiercely, eyes squeezed shut as he buries his face in Dean's collar, twists his fingers in his brother's shirt, like if he could only stay close enough, if he could only hold on tight enough, he could keep him here, keep him alive. "Don't you say that."

"Fine," Dean nods, his free hand finding its way to his brother's stupid, girly hair. "You keep believing enough for the both of us, then. And if you find this miracle you're lookin' for, I'll be the first in line, Sammy, I swear, but come on, man. Like you said at the hospital. We gotta look at all the options here."

"Don't wanna," Sam mumbles into his brother's collarbone, his eyes relaxing, drooping shut against his will as muscle memory takes over, gangs up on him with the late hour and the stress and the research to leave him drained, drained and exhausted and plaint against his big brother.

He shifts on the bed, moving his weight off Dean's chest but keeping an arm slung over his brother possessively, their legs tangled together in the sheets.

"I know, Sammy," Dean hums, his hand making soothing passes through Sam's hair. "I know."

* * *

This is the chickiest of chick flick moments, but Dean doesn't give a damn. He's dying. Not in a few years, not in a few months, not a few cases from now or in the middle of nowhere going up against some monster.

Here. Now.

His time with Sammy is ticking away, whittling down with every beat of his busted goddamn heart. Pretty soon, he's not gonna be able to grab his brother, to have that warm, familiar, overgrown body under his fingers to tell him that he's here, he's okay, that everything is all right. That's he's safe. Home.

And Sam? Sammy, who's gonna have to keep going after Dean's time runs out?

Well. Hell if he's gonna push Sam away now.

Instead, Dean settles them better on the bed, keeps an arm tight around Sammy's shoulders, and tugs the awful, flowered bedspread over them, lying back to scritch his fingers gently in the soft curls at the base of Sam's neck. When his little brother shifts in his sleep, turns further into Dean and winds a clumsy, sleepy hand in the hem of Dean's shirt, Dean smiles.

As sleep sneaks up on him, slows his breath and stills his hand on Sammy's head, Dean thinks that if he had to choose a way to go, this right here?

This'd be it.

* * *

Sam's buzzing, generic ringtone wakes them both up a few hours later, and by the time Dean has wheezed his way upright and scrubbed the sleep from his eyes, Sam's got Dad's journal open and a phone glued to his ear, going on about some dude in Nebraska, of all places, and Dean's being poked and prodded and packed in his baby, Sam stifling his complaints with Metallica and a Slim Jim like Dean's some sort of fussy toddler.

Dean shuts his trap, but not because of the tasty meat stick or the awesome tunes.

It's the look in Sam's eye that does it. Frayed. Desperate. Determined. Determined in a way he hasn't seen his little brother since...

Well, since that fuckin' basement in Louisiana.

(You know, that Rawhead was hiding in a basement, too. If he lives through this, and he's probably not, no matter what Sammy says, he really is gonna stay the fuck out of basements from now on as a rule. This whole "coming to terms with imminent death" thing sucks balls.)

Sam's face scares him, and worries him, as does the pile of research they left abandoned in the motel. If this is it, this is all Sam's got when it comes to savin' him, what's gonna happen when this doesn't pan out?

What shape will Sam be in when Dean dies?

They park it in the middle of Nowhere, Nebraska, and if the place weren't so fuckin' whitebread, Dean'd think Sam was takin' him to some hoodoo witchdoctor for a little mojo. There's no way in hell a heart specialist is operating out of the middle of a Nebraska cornfield. As it is, Sam is scurrying out of the driver's seat and using his stupid working heart to get around the Impala and help Dean out of the car like he's his fucking prom date, hovering and worrying like his big brother is made of fucking glass.

And then Dean sees the sign, and goddamnit, he'd prefer a dude in the back of a van with a dead chicken and some candles. A faith healer? _Really_?

He'd turn around, really he would, but Sam has this grip on his arms and he will _not_ let it go, so Dean makes his way inside, cursing the rain and the tent and Sam's stupid fucking inability to let him die easy. This is either a scam or a bunch of idiots standing together in the rain, screamin' out for help from someone who isn't there or doesn't give two shits whether they live or die, and either way, it's a waste of his goddamn limited time.

Fucking Sam. Fucking faith healing.

Even the hot chick with the umbrella can't lift his mood, can't erase the scowl in his eyes and the curl in his lip as the blind preacher starts yappin' about all the evils of the world, like Dean's doesn't already know.

He fights those evils, saves the people they go after.

It's his job, and it's already killed him once, so why does he have to sit here and listen to this dumbass preach about how bad the world is? All the awful things Sammy's gonna have to face alone after he's gone?

Hasn't he done enough that he shouldn't have to hear to this Bible-banging son of a bitch remind him of everything he couldn't stop? Everything Sammy's gonna be up against with no help after he's kicked the bucket? His baby brother, who's dead set on killing this demon, and now he's gonna have to do it with no one at his back? 'Cause Dean screwed up, made a stupid mistake and got himself killed?

The frustration, the contempt, has his speaking up, making a smart remark about the lie of it all louder than he normally would.

And it fucking figures that's what gets him noticed. That's what gets him a hand on the head and the world yanked out from under him, tanking and tilting and suddenly falling away, like he's being ripped from his body and rearranged, shoved back in, but at an odd angle, and Sammy's there, screaming his name and surging to the front, a hand fisted in Dean's jacket and catching him before he hits the ground, holding him and begging him to say something as a shadow... a _someone_ stands over the preacher's shoulder, then, in an instant, flickers out of view.

Dean knew there had to be a catch.

* * *

So there's a catch.

Sam hates it. Hates that his faith – his trust in the network, in people – was misplaced. Hates that good people, faithful people, were deceived, were lied because of the deluded zealotry of one woman. He hates the guilt he can see weigh on Dean's shoulders, darken his eyes every time he takes a breath without coughing, every time he rises without feeling dizzy, crosses a room without pain flaring up in his chest and the ground slipping out from beneath him.

Sam hates that people had to die. Hates that now the simple act of living makes Dean feel guilty.

But he will not apologize for it.

Because Sam's not sorry. Not for healing Dean. Not for bringing him here and fixing his heart and saving the only thing he has left in the world.

He isn't. He knows there's a twenty-seven year old man dead, a good man, one who did nothing wrong, and he knows it's because of him. But Dean is here. He's here, and he's not panting, not clutching his chest and limping and any second about to drop to the ground in front of Sam, dead. Gone.

He's here. And he's healthy. And he's gonna hate himself. Maybe hate Sam. Maybe for a long time. Maybe forever.

But Sam saved his brother.

He saved his brother, and he is not sorry.


End file.
